Got a link below to a good article called Are You a Business Analyst? This piece talks about what I think we all experience when we sit down sometimes and ask "what is it that I really do at work?" What is A BA? What's Beyond the BA Role? There are distinctive roles that we all fulfill. I'm not sure that I would call one more "complete" than the other. I think I would look at it as you are either a specialist, a generalist or a strategist. The roles that we fulfill most of are that of specialist and generalist. We specify requirements based on user needs and we recommend general solutions according to the business and the unique needs surrounding it. I think that the strategist is almost always completely lost for any one of the reasons below and not everyone can be a strategist. It comes down to whether or not you are a strategic or tactical thinker. If you are tactical then your best fit is in the pure translation of need to requirement and you will most likely feel more comfortable with the structure of the BOK from the IIBA In cases where a BA is a natural strategist and builds strategy into requirements and recommendations, when something works really well, others think it's because of superior development efforts when it's the strategic soundness that is creating the success. In cases like mine where recommendations are made to senior level management, many times it's done away from the IT project and then the strategy is inserted into the IT project at the BA level through the use of tools such as requirements documents, vision documents etc. First BA's were on the business side, then on the technical side, now on both sides. Technical and business are mixing and I think it's a good thing but waters down the role of Business Analyst. A BA on the business side has much more opportunity to bring about changes in perception for the BA role vs. being in the traditional IT role. Business Analysts usually don't worry about what they are referenced as during a project as most of them just want to get the job done and done as efficiently as possible. They sit back later on and ask the eternal question: "Why doesn't anyone understand what I do?" I think if I was going to recommend what they "new" BA role would be I would call it one of the following. I definitely would keep it away from anything to do with BPM or process management because that only muddies the waters more and then sets limits on the role by defining it as process oriented when , as a strategic BA, I may need to modify process, IT architecture or any number of other things in order to set the stage through the development project. I also think that the beauty of the role is that a person can grow within it simply because it is not over-defined. I like the idea of becoming an advisor at a certain level as well. It implies collective knowledge that can be applied to the business, the technical side or the project mechanics and is closest to what I see at a senior BA level: Strategic Business/IT Advisor Tactical Business/IT Specialist Tactical Business/IT Generalist http://www.bptrends.com/index.cfm